SUMMARY OF THE VOYAGE. IX 



Flora of that interesting and now highly important group, which, though it had been 

 partially examined by Admiral D'Urville, and previously by the officers of that unfor- 

 tunate ship, the " Uranie," under the command of Captain Freycinet, still afforded 

 considerable novelty. 



On the 6th of September, the early spring of the southern latitudes, the " Erebus 

 and Terror," with a portion of the officers, sailed from Berkeley Sound for the neighbour- 

 hood of Cape Horn, and arrived there, after having been driven far out of their course by 

 the equinoctial gales, on the 21 st, casting anchor in St. Martin's Cove, Hermit Island, lat. 

 56°, within a few miles of the far-famed Cape Horn, which is immediately opposite the 

 mouth of the Cove. This is the most southerly spot on the globe which possesses any- 

 thing above a herbaceous vegetation. Here, in the sheltered bays, the two kinds of 

 Antarctic Beech, the Evergreen and Deciduous, form a dense, though small forest, and 

 ascend, in a stunted form, to an elevation of 1000 feet on the bills. Many of the plants 

 gathered during Cook's first voyage, by Sir Joseph Banks and Solander, and by Forster 

 during his second, as also those which Mr. Menzies had detected, when accompanying 

 Vancouver's expedition, and which have not been hitherto published, were found again ; 

 and when the ships returned to the Falklands in November, Captain Ross transported 

 many hundreds of young Beech-trees and caused them to be planted there, in hopes that 

 the productions of so near a country might be found to succeed on these treeless islands. 

 Some were also sent home and have since been distributed in England, from the Royal 

 Botanic Gardens of Kew. 



The third cruise to the South Polar Regions was commenced on the morning of 

 the 17th of December 1842, when the expedition sailed from Berkeley Sound. An op- 

 portunity was afforded again of tracing the southern limit of Seaweeds. The Macro- 

 cystis was. lost in lat. 55° S.,long. 57° W. ; but on attaining lat. 63°, long. 54°, another 

 species appeared which had been originally discovered by Webster during the stay ot 

 Captain Forster's ship, the " Chanticleer," in Deception Island, one of the South Shetland 

 group, and again found by the expedition of Admiral D'Urville, and has since been pub- 

 lished under the name of Scytothalia Jacquinotii. On the 28th land was made, a por- 

 tion of Palmer's Land, to which the name of " Terre Louis Philippe" has since been 

 given by D'Urville. The ships were already in the pack-ice, through which we pene- 

 trated, tracing the hind to 64°, and seeing a small volcanic island, lying a few miles off 



